Steven Baeringer - Technical Designer

Solo Projects

Undisturbed - Spring 2018

Experience the Hero’s journey from another perspective, as you deliver judgement upon trespassers of your lair.

Technical combat prototype, made with 3rd party models and animations, between a player controlled Wyvern and Warrior, including a standalone racquetball spinoff made in two days (with AI Warrior, Blueprint below).

Aesthetic - Should feel slower but able to catch the opponent off guard with well timed/positioned powerful attacks and abilities.

Dynamics - A player that is too passive will be attacked more by small and noncommittal attacks and might run out of health. A player that is too aggressive might run out of stamina and might run out of health before it regenerates. Light attacks are not committed, but heavy attacks can be used to catch the opponent off guard.

Mechanics - Attacks should cover specific zones and ranges around the boss, including well conveyed, large area attacks, such that a player boss can choose the best option for attack (meaningful choice) based on their relative location to the Warrior.

- A problem I encountered here was that the animation pack for the Wyvern did not have rotating, stomping, or sweeping animations for attacks.

- To address this I will be looking for a better suited animation pack, I've made animation composites of parts of animations to create the anticipation of attacks, and I've used a Character Rotation Blueprint node to implement a sweeping/turn around attack.

Dynamics - A player that is too passive will not be in position to punish a Strong/Special attack by the boss and might run out of health. A player that is too aggressive might run out of stamina and might run out of health or heal ability before it regenerates. Light attacks are not committed but inefficient, while heavy attacks can be used to maximize damage potential and stagger the boss (planned).

Mechanics - Attacks should have damage that reflect the length of the animation and input required.

The Warrior must attack as much as possible while dodging and managing stamina to escape the strong Boss attacks.

- To give the player the choice of damage potential vs safety, I've implemented two weapons, a Sword that is fast but weak, and an Axe that is slow but strong.

- To give the player the ability to feel fast and skillful, I've implemented an Input Buffer and Directional Dodge.

- To make the player feel fragile, I've given them low health but a fixed number of healing items to use if they are skillful enough to escape further damage.

Features with * are coded either without guides or above and beyond their implementation.

Animation Montage based combat system that blends between the normal locomotion animation, using Animation Notifies to toggle states, launch the player, and call functions in Blueprint.

* Input Buffer System that allows the designer to choose which abilities (inputs) are allowed to automatically activate after each type of move is almost complete.

- This allows the player to efficiently attack, dodge, heal, or switch weapons without having to spam the input when it becomes available.

Lock On system using a Blueprint Interface to recieve and send lockable target position vectors and interpolating the Player Camera to look at that position on all axis and Control Rotation on the yaw axis.

* Directional Dodge that, with no input, dodges backwards, but will dodge in a direction calculated with the Anim Instance, Velocity, and Control Rotation if movement input is true.

Combo System which plays different attack Anim Montages if the same type of attack input is pressed before the combo is reset at the end of an Anim Montage.

* Light Attacks - Slowed movement and rotation windows during the startup or in between attacks to adjust to a moving target.

* Heavy Attacks - Stopped movement and slowed animation while button is held, until either the button is released or an Anim Notify in the Montage is reached, allowing for a slow or really slow wind up to throw off opponents and do massive damage. (currently damage scaling based on time held is planned but not implemented)

Review tech and art leads’ submissions for compliance with game vision.

Level design, scripted events, sound, lighting, cutscenes, and collaboration on the Player Controller.

This was our team's first Unreal Engine 4 game, we lost time due to Hurricane Irma, we had trouble setting up source control, and nobody knew how to make a horror game, but we overcame these obstacles through communication and a research based work ethic.

The hardest part of development was filling in the gaps of roles and skills of our team. We did not have a sound designer, first person animator, or particle designer, but were able to learn those skills during the semester.

This project was an important experience in transferring skills between C# and Unity to Blueprint and UE4, applying horror game design concepts, and working in a larger team of 8 people with a diverse set of skills and schedules.

Early in development, I had tried to make the entire scene scale accurately using multiple formulas for sizes of asteroids, planets, tiles, speed, and the player, but decided to fake it with having the player stay in one place and have the tiles come towards them while only scaling planets/targets.

This new method allowed for better stability and more free time to incorporate more advanced mechanics.

The hardest part of delevopment was doing most of the work for gameplay myself. With a team of five artists, a producer who could program, and one programmer, it seemed that I had a hand in everything.

This project was a good experience in scaling exponential functions of speed, scale, and difficulty, and using controller and mobile input in Unity.

About

Background

I grew up with video-games.

It all started when a doctor prescribed an NES to my older brother to train his lazy eye, where I played Mario Bros until I could clear level 1 with the controller upside while physically upside down. It was later that I would learn how to read from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time through the frustration of not knowing where to go.

For the most part, I stuck to gamecube and xbox games until Highschool, where I took a class in game design. There I learned how to create mechanics which ignited my passion, seeing peers enjoying and learning from my games like I had as a child.

Some of my favorite games are:

Conker's Bad Fur Day

Pikmin 2

Starcraft Broodwar

Bloodborne

Overwatch

Worms Armageddon

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Passion

The reason why I love and play video games enough to make it a career is largely because of mechanics and the ways I can use them, developer intended or not. I love to see the ways players interpret the tools developers give them and watch them go in totally different directions.

Ultimately, I enjoy creating challenge with multiple ways of navigating through it. There's something to be said about games that are still being played years later, standing the test of time.

Process

When it comes to solutions for projects, I consider the design goals, scope, and technology.

Next I set sprint goals that are attainable, giving extra consideration for tasks that would require research to implement.

For the first goal, I make a proof of concept for the technology/coding solution. This phase is crucial for getting interest in further development.

After this its all about open and clear team communication, integration of work, and the iterative process of agile development based on living documentation.

To help keep the team and I focused, I like to use version control and task management software like JIRA, Hack N Plan, Github, Slack, and Discord along with the Agile and Scrum methodologies.

Contact

Hello!

If you have questions about specific work I've done, would like to collaborate on a game, or want to discuss a job opportunity, please feel free to contact me.